I was almost in a car accident the other day. In a hurry, I was making a right turn into traffic, not realizing that from the other side of the road another car was trying to turn into the same lane. The blare of the other driver’s car horn stopped me just short of impact—and when I caught my breath and realized what had just happened, I blamed myself.
Maybe technically I had the right of way. But I had not taken in the complete picture. Instead of widening my gaze to take in the full view, seeing a car across the road entering the same lane I was driving toward, I was narrowly focused on what was directly in front of me. I ignored a danger that lurked just outside my self-imposed limited range of vision.
Are you giving your life the attention it deserves?
I’ll ask you the same questions I asked myself: Are you giving life your undivided attention? Or living with blinders on, not fully taking in all that’s around you? Are your distracted by a mind that’s too jammed with random thoughts or a schedule that’s all busy-ness, without enough time for yourself?
A few years ago, I listened to a podcast where the businesswoman Ariana Huffington talked about her crazy, workaholic life as the head of the Huffington Post. At the time it was one of the fastest growing media companies in the world and, by most societal measures, Huffington was wildly successful. But it was all at a steep personal cost.
After one particularly grueling stretch of work she literally passed out in her office, gashing her head on a desk in the process. She recalls that when she was with her adult children, she was totally preoccupied, thinking about her next meeting or her “to do” list at work. It was when a daughter called her out for not really listening to her, that Huffington came to the following realization:
Anything that matters requires your full attention.
Sometimes we stop paying attention because our lives are dulled by our daily routine. You might be working at a mundane job, traveling the same route to your workplace, and performing similar tasks each day. Or you might be at home, handling the same daily chores and running the same errands day in and day out.
It’s at these times, we can walk through daily life in a self-induced fog, not paying enough attention to the people and things around us. I can testify to doing this myself from time to time, tuning out the interesting things on the margins, the people I did not come in direct contact with, the beautiful elements of nature just outside my peripheral vision, the artwork and keepsakes that line my home. That’s a mistake.
When we go through life as if we have seen, done, and heard it all before—or are so busy that we ignore the people and environment around us, we stop being fully human. We lose the ability to tune in to the small details of life that have the power to surprise and delight us. We miss the nuances that add texture and meaning to our lives.
What if we woke up each day and saw life for the first time?
It’s an idea that the author Alan Lightman put forward in his book Einstein’s Dreams. In one memorable chapter, a daydreaming Albert Einstein imagines a world where people awake each day with no memory, unaware of who they are or what role they play in life. Each morning, they need to consult notebooks to uncover the details of their lives.
They go to a job that is new and full of promise with co-workers they meet with interest. They return home to spouses they have never seen before and children they have never met. With great curiosity, they reacquaint themselves with each other and tell stories about the day’s events. When the children go to bed, they look in their spouse’s eyes and talk to them as if for the first time.
In this world, everyone’s life is full and rich because as Lightman puts it, “It is only habit and memory that dull the passion for life.” Without habit and memory, we would live each day as if it were a new and exciting adventure. Is it possible that we too could start each day with a similar perspective on life?
What if we added more “awe” to our lives?
A recent story on “awe” appeared in The Guardian newspaper online. Awe is a word we don’t use that much and that my laptop dictionary defines as “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder,” as in “they gazed in awe at the small mountain of diamonds” or “the sight filled me with awe.”
We’re told that the Irish philosopher Edmund Burke had a revolutionary take on “awe.” You see, it was previously thought that awe was something felt only during religious ceremonies, when God was perceived to be present. But in 1757, Burke stated his belief that awe could be found in “everyday experiences like music, patterns of light or a crack of thunder.”
So how do we create a feeling of awe in our everyday lives? The article’s primary suggestion is to go on “an awe walk.” The Guardian tells us of a 2020 study showing that “participants taking weekly 15-minute awe walks for eight weeks reported less stress and increased emotions like compassion and gratitude.” What’s an awe walk? The article advises us to:
Take a short walk in your immediate neighborhood and observe details you wouldn’t normally notice: plants pushing through concrete or fences, the textures of a wooden bench, the structural patterns of high-rise buildings.
In other words, pay attention.
The good news: solving our attention-deficit problem is easy.
In a nutshell,
- We need to make a conscientious effort to live at a slower and more thoughtful pace, open to the people and places and experiences we encounter.
- We need to walk through life alive and alert, our eyes wide open, looking a little bit longer, listening a little more intently, digging a little deeper.
- We need to start interacting with life as it interacts with us.
When we teach ourselves to look past the things we know and expect, we may be surprised. We may find that our lives are richer and full of more interesting and rewarding experiences than we ever imagined. We may notice that the happiness and fulfillment we’ve been chasing have actually been with us all along.
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